Zeszyt naukowy - całość - Wydział ZarzÄ dzania i Ekonomiki Usług

Service value in hospitality industry 125
30-40%. A situation in hotel business is at the moment not satisfactory, but many
hotel managers understand the situation and pay more attention to things that can
bring additional value, increase the quality and strengthen customer loyalty.
2. The purpose of the research and methodology
The purpose of the paper is to study scientific research about value chain for
services and investigate an opinion of hotel managers in Latvia about it. A methodological
framework is based on content analyses of theoretical articles in scientific
magazines and professional journals. Substantial terms for customer value,
service, and value chain have been investigated and explained. A survey for hotel
managers – members of Association of Hotels and Restaurants in Latvia was conducted;
the aim of the survey was to determine the most important components in
the value chain regarded by hotel managers.
3. Conceptual background
The concept of value has been applied in various fields such as economics,
social science, accounting, finance, strategy, product management, information
system, and marketing and in tourism research 7 . There are various definitions of
value by different scholars. Holbrook 8 defines customer value as “an interactive
relativistic preference experience”; Zeithalm 9 identifies four diverse meanings of
value: value is a low price; value is whatever one wants in a product; value is the
quality that the customer receives for the price paid; value is what the consumer
gets for what they give.
Flint et al. 10 suggest that value can be classified as values, desired values, and
value judgments. The notion of value judgment is the customer’s assessment of
what has happened (benefits and sacrifices). This implies that value is a process of
interpretation of what a customer feels concerning the product or service consumed,
relative to the sacrifices (generally price or time).
7
J. Sanchez, L. Callarisa, R.M. Rodriguez, M.A. Moliner, Perceived value of the purchase
of a tourism product, “Tourism Management” 2005, No. 27, pp. 394–409.
8
H. Nasution, F. Mavondo, Customer value in the hotel industry: What managers believe
they deliver and what customer experience, “International Journal of Hospitality Management”
2008, No. 27, pp. 204–213.
9
Ibidem.
10
D.J. Flint, R.B. Woodruff, S.F. Gardial, Customer value change in industrial marketing
relationships: a call for new strategies and research, “Industrial Marketing Management” 1997,
No. 26 (2), pp. 163–175.